The $21 Challenge (We show you how to feed your family for a week on just $21)

Publishing company name, (Published 2010)

Written By Fiona Lippy and Jackie Gower

Australia

Review 4 Stars – Excellent Book

How the blurb describes the book:
Feed a family for a week on $21? You must be kidding!
Not at all! It really is possible. Over the last three years, thousands of families in Australia have already achieved ‘the impossible’.

How does it work? Simple – this week you are allowed to spend $21 on food. You will have to learn how to stretch the food you already have in your cupboard, pantry, garden and freezer to stay within your $21 budget.

Can you do it? Absolutely! We have already done all the hard work for you. All the information and inspiration you need to succeed is in this book.

What’s in it for you? More money for starters! The average family spends $320 per week on food. If you succeed at the Challenge you will be $300 richer. You will also learn great new skills to save time and money cooking, such as substituting ingredients instead of running to the shop, how to use up forgotten items in your pantry, and how to turn leftovers into delicious new meals. The $21 Challenge will make your life easier!

“I started off my Simple Savings ways with the $21 Challenge and it has changed my life. We used the money saved to replace the radiator in my husband’s car. Thank you, Simple Savings!” Michelle Kindregan

So what are you waiting for? Get this book home and start saving with The $21 Challenge!

The $21 Challenge is written by Fiona Lippy and Jackie Gower, the money saving gurus behind www.simplesavings.com.au. Each month, Simple Savings helps over 200,000 families in Australia and New Zealand through their website and Jackie’s ‘Penny Wise’ column in That’s Life!

Mr Home Budget’s Review:
Fiona Lippy and Jackie Gower run the very successful savings site, Simple Savings. They have taught a generation of Australian/New Zealand families to save money on all sorts of products. However, this is their first foray into a cookbook.

What you should know right away is this is not your average cookbook. Meaning it’s not just a list of recipes for you to pick and choose. The first four chapters will give you other things to think about rather than just how many eggs you need for a particular recipe. And this is really where the book shines in my opinion.

For example in chapter two of the book they lay out a bunch of reasons to take part in the challenge. And then they get you to grade this reason from one to five on how important it is to you to take up the challenge. For example on page 35 the reason is: It will make you a smarter shopper. “The $21 Challenge makes it harder for marketers to persuade you into ‘accidentally’ buying goods on impulse. When you walk into a supermarket with no real purpose you are easy to manipulate. You are very vulnerable in a place where every single item has its own marketing team all trying to coax your money out of you. But when you do the Challenge you have a goal and a purpose – all of a sudden you become far less easy to suck in. You stop being a shopping victim and start being a Savvy Shopper!” At this point you will give this a mark from one to five. They encourage you for each 5 mark you get next to a reason to photocopy this page and leave it somewhere you can see it daily. This will help motivate you to keep going when times get tough.

Some of the other reasons for you to mark between one and five as to how much it concerns you:
I want to be prepared in the event of an economic crisis
I want to be more organised
I want to be healthier
I want to make my life easier
I want to make cooking more enjoyable

Plus littered throughout the book are quotes from real people who have done the challenge. These can be extremely helpful to know you are not alone in your concerns or worries about certain parts of it. These quotes can be quite uplifting, as you can see people’s happiness from successfully taking part. Here is one which took my eye, “I learned to look at the bottom and top shelves in the supermarket, no longer just at eye level. That’s where all the expensive items are! Since taking the Challenge, I now watch everything I spend and write it all down. I am getting rid of debt and saving money for the first time in a long time. The money I saved in my first Challenge paid for a whole year’s registration on my car!”

The book also tackles the question, “How do I win over my hungry family to help me with this?” They have a range of suggestions to help you get your family onboard to allow you to cut back on spending money at the supermarket. Let’s face it; you might have trouble convincing people who are used to a Sunday roast and takeaway meals to change their habits even for just one week.

The menu planner in the book is a great idea. With easy to follow instructions to fill out a plan for the week of the $21 challenge. It makes you feel as if you are in control of your food and not the other way round.

Here is just one recipe from the book which I think you will enjoy, and your bank balance will love:
Jackie’s Easy Chicken Curry

The easiest curry you’ll ever make and a great way to use up a tin of soup! So mild and creamy even the little ones will love it.

Chicken pieces (enough for four people)
50g butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 tspns curry powder
1 tblspn plain flour
1 x 400g can condensed cream of chicken soup
250g tub sour cream
Salt and pepper

Put your oven on to 180C for 10 minutes to heat up. Put your chicken in an ovenproof dish and cook for 30-40 minutes, turning once. Heat your butter until sizzling in a medium saucepan, and add your onion and curry powder, frying gently for a few minutes until tender. Add the flour, stir until all ingredients are combined and remove the pan from the heat. Add your soup, sour cream, salt and pepper to the pan and stir. Return the pan to the heat and keep stirring until your sauce thickens, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour the sauce generously over your cooked chicken and serve with rice and vegetables.

Be 100% aware upfront if you think you can do this challenge week in and week out, you will be sorely disappointed. And the authors tell you in strong words that it is not designed to be a permanent thing. The $21 challenge week is a weapon in your arsenal to use sporadically throughout your life when you are low on money. However, as they point out and I agree, you will learn skills in this challenge which you can implement during a normal week to just cut down on your total supermarket spend. Even if these skills or recipes are used only once a week, every week, you can’t help but cut down on your supermarket spending.

A great book with some wonderful recipes and real life usable advice on how to cut down your spending. You will earn back the purchase price of this book throughout your life many times over. Any book which does this is a must-have in your home library.

Pros:
A great book which not only gets you thinking about saving money but also about other motivations for learning to cook and use everything in your pantry.
Simple recipes you probably have never even thought about.
You will earn back the purchase price of the book many times over your lifetime.

Cons:
Some of the earlier chapters tend to be a bit long.